November 10, 2018

Ending Mandatory Arbitration - Progress Is Partial

Employees outside the tech industry should feel emboldened to also push back against required private arbitration in general.

Usually they have to sign the agreements the day they are hired. Those tend to be comprehensive, covering matters ranging from compensation to inappropriate conduct.

Inside tech, employee discontent increasingly has resulted in the end of those policies in situations of sexual harassment/assault. That opens the door to blowing up that mandate for other types of employee complaints.

Earlier this week, Google announced employees were now free to take their grievances about inappropriate sexual behavior to court. Its employees - called "googlers" - had walked off the job. Among the demands was that right.

Yesterday, Facebook also lifted the mandate that employees submit sexual harassment allegations to arbitration. Here are more details from The Wall Street Journal.

But what employees want is to extend that ban to other kinds of complaints such as gender or racial discrimination

Beyond employee complaints there are those by consumers, such as against the practices of financial services corporations. Frequently they opt into agreeing to binding confidential arbitration and don't even know it. That's because the clause about that is buried in pages of a contract filled with legalese.

Of course, they should take the time to read the contract. For years consumer advocates have been lobbying against corporations' preventing consumers from their day in court, especially as part of a class action.

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